[Tyler]

Consciousness May Not Require Big Brain
     


In an appropriate follow up to yesterday's article on IBM's large
scale cortical simulation, comes news
from brain researchers at Queen Mary, University of London and
Cambridge University. Lars
Chittka and other researchers, who have been studying both computer
simulations and animal brains, now believe that brain size is not as
significant as previously believed with respect to general intelligence
and consciousness. "No
one would seriously suggest that a bigger computer is automatically a
better computer", say the researchers.
We know that body size is the single best way to predict an
animal's brain size. However, contrary to popular belief, we can't say
that brain size predicts their capacity for intelligent behaviour. In
bigger brains we often don't
find more complexity, just an endless repetition of the same neural
circuits over and over.

The larger amount of IO needed in larger animals for things such as more
muscles and higher resolution sensors may be the main driving factor
for needing larger brains. The researchers say it's possible significant
intelligence and consciousness could be present even in insect brains.
This fits in with other recent research showing that, despite their tiny
brain size, bees could
match the best machine-based face recognition algorithms. For more,
see the full text the researchers report, Are
Bigger Brains Better (PDF format), or listen to the BBC Radio
interview of Professor Lars Chittka on BBC Radio 4. CC-licensed  image
of honeybee by flickr user Agent Opie
   

http://robots.net/article/2949.html